page_title: Ancient Roman pottery
section_title: Terracotta figurines
hierarchical_section_title: Ancient Roman pottery / Other ceramics / Terracotta figurines
caption_attribution_description: English: Pipeclay figurine of a mother-goddess from a cemetery at Welwyn Grange, Hertfordshire. The figure sits in a wicker chair and is suckling a baby. Roman Britain, 2nd century AD. Ht.14.5 cm. British Museum, London. PE 1981.11-2.1
context_page_description: Pottery was produced in enormous quantities in ancient Rome, mostly for utilitarian purposes. It is found all over the former Roman Empire and beyond. Monte Testaccio is a huge waste mound in Rome made almost entirely of broken amphorae used for transporting and storing liquids and other products – in this case probably mostly Spanish olive oil, which was landed nearby, and was the main fuel for lighting, as well as its use in the kitchen and washing in the baths.
  It is usual to divide Roman domestic pottery broadly into coarse wares and fine wares, the former being the everyday pottery jars, dishes and bowls that were used for cooking or the storage and transport of foods and other goods, and in some cases also as tableware, and which were often made and bought locally. Fine wares were serving vessels or tableware used for more formal dining, and are usually of more decorative and elegant appearance. Some of the most important of these were made at specialised pottery workshops, and were often traded over substantial distances, not only within, but also between, different provinces of the Roman Empire.
context_section_description: Italian styles exerted much less influence across the Empire in terracotta figurines or statuettes than in pottery vessels; here the longstanding traditions of Greek terracotta figurines, and those of Egypt and other Eastern provinces of the Empire, were the dominant influences. In some northern provinces, such as Gaul and Germany, there was no native Iron Age tradition of making terracotta figurines, but new industries developed under Roman influence manufacturing mould-made figures in fine white pipeclay. Like bronze statuettes, which would have been more expensive items, small terracotta figures were generally made for ritual or religious purposes, such as dedication at temples, display in household shrines, or as grave-goods to be deposited with the dead. However, some terracottas were also used as toys by children, even if they were not manufactured for that specific purpose. Most of the small terracotta figurines were mould-made objects manufactured in quite large numbers, and most would have been painted in bright colours when new. These pigments, applied after firing, rarely survive burial except in small and faded patches.
  Each region of the Empire produced terracottas in distinctive local styles, but all had rather similar ranges of subjects, above all the standard religious themes of gods, goddesses and their attributes; representations of birds and animals may often be linked with specific deities, though some animal figures may well have been made without any religious or ritual purpose. The religious subjects often include local traditions and cults: for example, the Romano-Egyptian repertoire of terracottas includes Egyptian deities, such as Harpocrates, the Graeco-Roman form of Horus, while Celtic gods appear amongst those made in the Central Gaulish industries, centred in the Allier Valley and the Rhineland industry at Cologne.
  A Celtic mother-goddess nursing one, or sometimes two, infants, is one of the most popular Central Gaulish types, though Venus was also very frequently represented in Gaul. The mother-goddess figurines are shown seated in high-backed basketwork chairs that seem to have been typical of Gaul and Britain. Figurines from the Allier Valley and Cologne sources sometimes bear the signatures of modellers and/or mouldmakers. As in the case of the Gaulish samian industries, the makers' names and the styles and themes all illustrate the fusion of local and Mediterranean traditions.
caption: Gaulish pipeclay figurine of a mother-goddess, England, 2nd century AD
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